FIFA World Cup Brazil video game preview: The greatest show on turf?

The road to this summer’s World Cup in Brazil is a thoroughfare pockmarked with uncertainties. Will the fans be safe? Will the stadiums be finished?

Mercifully, one element of the tournament that isn’t up in the air is its official videogame. One can state, without doubt, that it will be completed on time.

As has become traditional, the game is being developed by EA Canada, and is an offshoot of the all-conquering FIFA series. But this year, there is a rather strange twist: despite the incredible commercial and critical success of FIFA 14 on the most recently released consoles, the World Cup title is exclusive to PS3 and Xbox 360.

There’s only one place we can begin, then, when sitting down with line producer Matt Prior, and that’s by launching a studs-up tackle towards the elephant in the room – the lack of PS4 and Xbox One versions. “We have a certain amount of development resources we can put towards the game, and we ultimately want to get it to as many people as we possibly can,” he says. “Right now, that means Xbox 360 and PS3 only. The reach of those consoles is currently greater than that of the PS4 and Xbox One, particularly in Latin America – and to have alienated the host nation wouldn’t have been good.

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“But I do think our game holds up against PS4 and Xbox One games, and in this instance it’s a disappointment that the newer consoles aren’t backwards compatible. There will be an offering for next-gen guys through Ultimate Team, which we’ll talk more about at a later date.”

Thankfully, he’s not wrong about the game holding up well. After a day spent playing it at the Electronic Arts UK headquarters in Guildford, I can confirm that while it lacks the polish of ”new” FIFA, it still does a sterling job of recreating the tournament in virtual form, and – crucially – contains innovations that will surely carry over to FIFA 15 across all formats. “Nothing we do is throwaway,” says Prior. “It’ll all roll into future iterations.”

On the field of play, some of these improvements are animation based – attackers cleverly adjusting their feet to caress airborne passes delivered behind them in a single movement, defenders clambering on and over forwards to head balls clear – while others concern AI. Back fours are noticeably more compact, no longer offering oceans of space for wingers to cut into, and players both accelerate and decelerate with more verve than in previous outings. “We wanted players who reacted more explosively to your controller inputs,” explains Prior.

Also reworked are penalties, which EA felt were too difficult for the casual players who make up 50% of the target audience for this particular game. Now they’re harder to miss – stop the needle in the green part of the accuracy meter and you’re guaranteed a shot on target – and more fun for the keeper, too. Each face button corresponds to an action that the netminder can trigger during the run-up: on PS3, Circle points towards a corner, Cross provides Grobbelaar-esque jelly legs, Triangle gets the keeper to wave his arms around, while Square seemingly has him pretending to hold a cape out for an imaginary bull. They’re ultimately pointless, like taunts in a fighting game, but fun all the same.

It adds up to a much more action-packed, and therefore often frantic, experience than last year’s Fifa 14 – whichever console you played it on. But while the gameplay can be described as arcade-esque, the trimmings surrounding what happens on the pitch are anything but. Prior’s team has gone to the usual lengths to ensure that you really feel part of the summer’s footy frenzy, with the game packing in all 203 teams from the qualifying stages, made up of 7,469 players – all of whom have their names in the game. “We got poor old Clive Tyldesley to sit in the studio and record every last one,” reveals Prior. “I felt for him when he got to Madagascar and Burkina Faso.”

Matches take place at all 12 stadiums from this summer’s World Cup, and a few other big ones are in there, too (Wembley, Amsterdam Arena, Santiago Bernabéu, Stadio Olimpico to name four), in case you wish to replay a team’s entire qualifying campaign. Once dropped into a stadium for a match, you’re treated to the customary shots of supporters partying both in the stands and, in a neat touch, at ”fan fests“ back in their country of origin. “We’ve got those ‘crowd at home’ scenes for every team in the world, with fans watching and reacting accordingly,” says Prior. “For the bigger sides they take place at unique landmarks: The Colosseum, Trafalgar Square, Brandenburg Gate, Champs-Élysées and so on.” With one very noticeable exception, however. “We couldn’t show the Eiffel Tower because that’s architecturally licensed. The whole thing is a bit of a minefield. We had to pick and choose dependent on lawyers.”

Also adding to the tournament atmosphere are two talk shows which you can select to accompany your qualifying or finals campaigns in between matches. Andy Goldstein and Ian Darke front EA Sports Talk Radio (see what they’ve done there?), while the Men In Blazers station features two Brits (one Liverpool fan, one Chelsea) who have made a name for themselves across the pond with caustic input to NBC’s soccer coverage. Their inclusion is intended to work on two levels: by giving you instant feedback on recent results, and adding an extra dazzle of magic to the illusion that you’re part of a national side playing in a major tournament.

I’m surprised by how well this feature works. In my five hours with the game, I hear no repetition whatsoever from the talking heads. While playing a finals campaign as Brazil, there’s a surprisingly in-depth preview of the game with Cameroon, followed by a humorous monologue from Darke on how to pronounce the Fluminese attacker Fred’s name. Men In Blazers serve up similarly entertaining opinions, for instance selecting Manuel Neuer for their World Cup Ultimate Team on the basis of his ability to stop referees giving goals in World Cup knockout stages using his mind. FIFA games aren’t exactly known for hilarity, so these shows are a very welcome change of tone from the brain-breaking Europop dirge found in EA’s club football game year after year.

On the subject of Ultimate Team, it’s conspicuous by its absence given the manner in which the card-and-coin-collecting mode dominates modern Fifa titles. Again, Prior has a clear explanation: “We looked at Ultimate Team and decided against including it. For one, 50% of our users are brand new to Fifa, and FUT is a more hardcore mode. Secondly, it’s a hell of a lot of work and committing resources. Bringing the UI over would have meant having to sacrifice somewhere in the region of three other game modes. It’s that big. Finally, the mechanic behind Ultimate Team is that it’s a club football thing. It doesn’t really gel with the core concept of what World Cup football is about.”

In fairness, those other modes on offer are plentiful. In addition to playing through the World Cup offline from day one of either Qualifying or the Finals, you get an online World Cup against up to 32 human players, Captain Your Country (steer one player – or, with mates, a collection of players – from semi-anonymity to Maracana glory), Story of Qualifying (replay or change the course of 60 real life scenarios) and more. Indeed, the most fun I have with the game is via Story of Qualifying, trying to replicate American Samoa’s first ever win, a 2-0 triumph against Tonga.

And that, really, demonstrates the depth on offer here – while most casual players will stick with trying to win the World Cup with Brazil, Germany or (more fool them) Roy’s ”pride” of Lions, the dedicated should find equal enjoyment in a match between two nations from which they won’t know a single player. It’s of course a blow that this isn’t bound for PS4 or Xbox One. But even so, EA’s latest football offering promises a Yaya Toure-strong accompaniment to the greatest show on turf.

• 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil is released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on 17 April.